San Rafael's Varner trying to overcome heavy odds to win Dipsea Race as a scratch runner

For the past four years, Alex Varner has covered the Dipsea's 7.5-mile course from Mill Valley to Stinson Beach faster than any runner in the field. For his troubles, the San Rafael native has officially finished third once and fourth three times.

"It's not that frustrating," said Varner, who as a member of the invitational field's 19 to 30 age group starts as much as 25 minutes behind some runners. "As a scratch runner, people ask me, 'When are you going to win?' 'Do you think you're going to win?' But that's not really in my mind. The fastest time is what I'm shooting for and that's a little bit more in my control than winning the race outright. So it's not that frustrating.

"At times, it makes me wonder if anybody from scratch could ever win. But I think it's been so long that it's not really a priority."

Priority or not, Varner, 27, will line up Sunday morning dreaming the impossible dream. The Branson School and Davidson University graduate, who lives and works in San Francisco, will look to become only the sixth scratch runner to win the Dipsea since it began in 1905. The most recent runner to achieve the feat was Carl Jensen in 1966.

Varner posted a time of 49 minutes, 26 seconds in 2009 to take top time honors, and then followed with times of 48:54, 49:08 and 49:01. Those times left him between 1 minute, 1 second and 1:50 of the overall winner.

"He's really talented at running up hills," Gus Gibbs, who had the second-fastest time in the 2012 Dipsea, said of Varner. "He definitely has the dedication and puts in the time and the effort. He gets a lot of sleep and trains really hard and sort of follows the program. He spends a lot of time on the trail; he's very dedicated to say the least."

Varner first ran the Dipsea as a Branson senior in 2003, and after taking a year off from the race in 2004, he has been a part of the field since 2005. What he has learned along the way is the plusses and minuses of navigating through a field of about 1,500 runners.

"It's different," Varner said. "You run road races and cross country and almost any other race and you start out in front and you've got people running with you the whole time who you know are your level. And this is different because there's always someone ahead of you to pull yourself to.

"And that's actually kind of nice because when you see someone in front of you, you know they're not running as fast. So it kind of gives me a little bit of a mental edge: All right, I can pull myself to them and get by them. And then the next person and the next person after that; it happens hundreds of times. It makes it easier, frankly, to have people to key off of."

The downside, however, is that the Dipsea trail isn't always conducive to passing. There are parts of the course where a runner or group of runners can impede a trailing runner from getting by them.

"It's such a different animal than a normal road race," said Varner, a member of the West Valley Track Club in San Francisco and the 26th-place finisher this year in the Boston Marathon. "The top runners are used to having the whole road to themselves and here you don't. You're on the bottom of the food chain because you're coming from behind."

"There are a lot of obstacles," added Mill Valley's Mark McManus, who had the Dipsea's best time in 2006, 2007 and 2008. "It's very hard for a guy like Alex or myself, so the way to look at it is to get in the top five is pretty exciting. I'm at the point where I always feel like I can win — and maybe Alex does, too — but it's not going to kill us if we don't because we realize this is one of those races where it benefits people who are really young or much older because of the handicap system. And we've just accepted that fact and continue with the race and love it."

Varner shares that attitude, but that doesn't mean he doesn't want to win. After showing he is among the elite runners in the field each year, he dares to dream of crossing the finish line in first place.

"It kind of took me a little bit to figure out the race," Varner said. "I don't think anybody has it totally figured out, and nobody ever will. But it was a couple years before I realized I could be good at this. "... And it hasn't sunk in that I'm the fastest guy out there because you're always worried about someone better being out there.

"I would love to win. But I think I need a minute or two (head start) to take a shot at it. And realistically, probably seven or eight, which will come when I'm 55, so I've got a ways to go before that. "... I think I've been about as close (to winning as a scratch runner) as I'm going to get until I get some handicap help. But I've got a while. There's no rush."